AN: Hi. Here I am, trying for the second time to translate one of my story for the 'great audience', I hope you like that piece of fluffy madness as it happened in Italy. I really care for that little one-shot. But the thing is … I need a beta. I really need one native speaker to help me getting into the English correct syntax and expressions. Someone wants to help me? *_* Pleeeease!
Thank you a lot for your attention, hope you enjoy my little story.
Tu sei tutto. Ma lo sai che sei tutto? You are everything, everything! Tu sei la prima donna del primo giorno della creazione. Sei la madre, la sorella, l'amante, l'amica, l'angelo, il diavolo, la terra, la casa... Ah, ecco che cosa sei: la casa.
You are everything. You know that you're everything? You're the first woman on the first day of creation. You're mother, sister, lover, friend, angel, devil, earth, home… Ah, that's what you are: home.
(La Dolce Vita – Federico Fellini)
Dimidium Animae Meae
It's a metal plate, maybe steel. It looks like one of that things Muggles' Army take on their missions: a long chain to hang on their necks and a little rectangle with rounded edges as trinket. But there's no name on it, no blood group, no sign of recognition. No. Just an engraving: dimidium animae meae.
Harry still doesn't know what it means. He's never had the time to ask her.
Hermione had hung it around his neck, the eve of their assault on Gringotts. She was tense, tired and rather hostile – for the Polijuice, for Bellatrix's wand and everything else. But she has always been his rock.
"Take this" she said, before forcing him to rest, zealously. "Take it and try to sleep. Please." She didn't give him even the time to ask for explanations. Take it: dimidium animae meae.
The wind is whistling. It blows lightly. It's like the muttering of children, who eager wait their gifts during Christmas night. Christmas night. He's going to miss it, Christmas night as well.
He's going to die. While the wind is whistling, Death Eaters are around him, and Voldemort is ready to hurl the last anathema. He's going to die. And he still doesn't know what it means.
"Harry—you're a great wizard, you know."
"I'm not as good as you," said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let him go.
"Me!" said Hermione. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things—friendship and bravery and—oh Harry—be careful!"
Hermione raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air, and a wreath of Christmas roses blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his parents' grave.
As soon as he stood up he wanted to leave: He did not think he could stand another moment there. He put his arm around Hermione's shoulders, and she put hers around his waist, and they turned in silence and walked away through the snow, past Dumbledore's mother and sister, back toward the dark church and the out-of-sight kissing gate.
The wind is whistling. On the Black Lake, the fresh May is bending flowers and trees to its will. The air is so cheerful that everything seems a big mocking. How many are gone? In the wind, a voice whispers. Away. In peace, maybe.
Hermione keeps on staring at the tricks of light the sun reflects on the water. Everything is so calm, strangely. All is calm after the tempest.
Harry's sitting beside her, with his back against the big beech in the garden of their old school: he's playing with a blade of grass, loosing himself in who knows what thoughts. Maybe, he's remembering one by one the bodies they have buried in the morning. Maybe, he would have followed Ron and Ginny and all the Weasleys to the Burrow. Maybe, he's still searching some evanescent shadow over there in the Forest. In his eyes, there's all that and a lot of other things.
"What does it means?" He tickles her face with the blade of grass.
"What?" Hermione pretends she doesn't understand. Harry frees the first two buttons of his shirt and takes out the chain. Her gift. Her 'remember me'.
"It's latin" she tries to clarify. Now, suddenly, she's afraid again. Afraid to actually reveal him the meaning of that little plate. "It's what Horace wrote about Virgile. They're two poets … latin poets … it was his way to thank his friend, considering him …" Harry cannot hide a smile when he hears Hermione's typical 'encyclopedia' tone. With his soft hold, he stops her hand which has just started to play too much with the trinket.
"What does it mean, Hermione?" He's serious. Bloody serious. He's staring into her eyes. And Hermione, damn, has never been able to manage Harry's direct glance.
"Half of my soul" she blows, rash and fragile, on his lips. She blows lightly. Like the wind.
Harry laughs: he's home. Finally home.